This arc of days smelling of colder dirt
Not coy, forth coming birth of frost.
Sep 18, 2018
Sep 18, 2018 at 6:44 AM UTC
The moat where we keep watery fowl
afloat feeding them cracked corn
scattered from our parapets.
Repaired the dry rot in the gate, got the
drawbridge working, again…it rusts.
There is dust, makes us sneeze.
Stumble over stones, look at masons
askance. Threaten grain withholding
(hint: barley) unless they
make ‘em flush.
How fun to keep
the keep
shiny.
Sep 17, 2018
Sep 17, 2018 at 5:15 AM UTC
There might have been a time
When I wasn’t full of fear so topped off
Like a gassy sombrero
like a burrito left in the
Sun to bake and there might have
Been a
Time
When I hadn’t yet eaten a burrito
landlocked
In New England, locked in a small state of
Fear and knowing that knowing
just isn’t
Enough.
There might have
Been
A time when luxury was a nickel
apiece paperback
Book at the Unitarian Church fall sale
to raise funds for
Their roof.
To raise their
Roof.
And there
Might
Have been a joy in my spark
Plugs,
A joy
In my canter
A Joy in
My legs that preceded my
Fears.
There might
Have
Been a time:
When I would pick one of the seven records we owned
And delicately put it on the turntable, thinking I will
Have my own money and
buy my own music.
When I idly lift the leaded paint
from the 200 year old wood
And scratch it to smell its sweet aroma.
And put my hand on the glass pane
Think hard enough and open your eyes and it will be
1838 again.
Oh where are the people?
Oh where
when there might have been a time
Did I not see who they are?
Or they did not register.
I must have watched them everyday
Observant
so keen to be seen
Is it possible to feel so much
for feeling so little?
Or did I feel gulfs of embrace
that were not there?
I wanted and I desired and I dug.
I craved and thought and speculated
and clung.
And there might have
Been
A time when I roared on my Schwinn down the long empty
Roads of my town.
Invoking our gods.
Invoking my claims.
There was a time when I stuttered with
Compassion and could
feel a touch observed
There was a time:
Across the street in a
lit house at dusk.
Their curtains are open, their lights are on.
Oh, the sun has settled down
There is that time, golden, when I
Look into your kitchen, and the wallpaper is
Blue and harvest gold with small pictures of oil lamps on
Them and your walls are mustard gold.
Your plates are unbreakable
I see them lustre in the
Overhead light, fashioned like a wagon wheel.
Guns ablazin’.
Trails awash.
There might be a time when I can slip back
Into your kitchen
lick the plates and then
Run my fingers over
the wall paper.
Tracing the outline of the oil
lamps imprinted.
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 7:19 AM UTC
Sitting in a circle itchy patchy cross legged
hearing the feet passing the scratchy
the whoosh brush of almost hands
at our backs
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 7:17 AM UTC
giant plans
little bit of
add extra time
commute
according to
giant plans
little bit of
new this hour
embrace
Monday through Sunday
giant plans
little bit of
isolated
thunderstorms
everything dries up
giant plans
little bit of
closer to the shore
afternoon hours
isolated
giant plans
little bit of
push into
planning to drive
chance of
giant plans
little bit of
head into the end
warming trend
dry out
Jun 13, 2018
Jun 13, 2018 at 6:54 AM UTC
Moved around a lot
-Cockle-jocked kid
plastic with newness
Trailers dusty
roses blousy with thorns and white
pecked leaves mottled.
Resist these yards’ allure
avoid the
crackers’ friendly waves
Pedal to the Haven
piles of fill, construction
reduced tombs of left over
concrete
bricks mounds of playtimes
trenches in which to ****
off.
Trenches in which
mosquito larvae swim
skeezle-legged and
willow branches are
whips
pieces of drywall
soaked grenades and
wooden
are the guns.
Summer haircut flat nest of
stubble
face and scalp burnt. Enough
pieces of bikes to Frankenstein
one fine ride.
From the top of the hill
mawed youth
rumbles down to barrel
roll crescendo’d
stops. Let the
good
times.
Close out the day draw its
petty dread adrenalined
Panting cuz you are
late and he said
six.
Sectioned eight
pink stucco flakes and
sweetened lead.
Tatty shades
shriven.
He’s a tar cracked heel
small white dot
white
blink
blot
thinks about a
lot, these yards
landscapes drifted, curled with
feet to face, conserve his
heat.
Apr 18, 2018
Apr 18, 2018 at 8:01 AM UTC
Wallace Stevens
Wazzup?
With the widows and the maidens?
The name
dropping
the distancing vocabulary that
we scurry to look up
look up
train our eyes
train.
If I came into your office, in downtown
Hartford a city
I knew framed - as my father grew up in
Wethersfield always said
be careful –
downtown Hartford is
not a good place to be alone.
So I saunter, prink, and
perambulate
plonk myself
past your receptionist.
A widow?
And she’d holler:
-Mr. Wallace I asked her to stop!
And your desk which you requested almost 15 years ago
already looks out of date in too heavy oak is
caught between us, a horizontal surface filled
with paper.
There will be one sentence.
And one exclamatory remark.
-Wallace, you’re only human - you put your pants on
one leg at a time.
-No!
he says, jumping up from his desk,
-Watch!
He undoes his belt, he drops his trousers
he steps out of them –
He steps out one leg at a time.
BUT
Wallace Stevens, god bless him,
arranges his pants carefully on the floor of the
Hartford Accident
and
Indemnity Company
just so.
And grinning,
hops into both puddled legs
at the same time.
Then bends over and hoists the waistband
the belt dangling
in triumph.
Lesson learned.
Learned, schooled like
St. Ursule with her radishes
Just another lady
Just another confabulist
Just another story.
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 9:32 AM UTC
A routine that hints at
outline
of endeavor:
The tea, the clothes
the washing
up.
The sit, the write
the sit some
more.
The stretch.
Mar 15, 2018
Mar 15, 2018 at 8:27 AM UTC